Moyo goes to court over anti-Mugabe articles

Serial turncoat and Zanu-PF politburo member Jonathan Moyo says the anti-President Robert Mugabe articles he penned several years ago are now offending him.

Moyo, the architect of Zimbabwe's tough media laws, made the revelation in a summons he issued to a local weekly, the Zimbabwe Independent, seeking an order to restrain the newspaper from publishing, printing, reproducing or adapting the original work, or selling or offering for sale, copies of his anti-Mugabe articles.

Moyo wants the high court to order the Zimbabwe Independent to deliver to him all copies of articles he wrote for the newspaper and those which are in the newspaper's possession or under its control and all the plates which were used in the production of the pieces of writing.

In addition, the former information, media and publicity minister is also claiming $20000 in damages from the editor, Constantine Chimakure, and publishers, ZimInd Publishers.

Moyo's actions come almost a month after The Zimbabwe Independent reproduced one of his articles, entitled "Mugabe puts nation's survival at great risk" which he wrote five years ago and which was first published by the newspaper.

In the article, which he wrote exclusively for the Zimbabwe Independent in 2006 after falling out with Zanu-PF and Mugabe, Moyo detailed how the octogenarian leader posed a "fatal danger to the public interest of Zimbabweans" and was putting "the nation's survival at great risk".

The article is just one in a series of flip-flopping by the Tsholotsho North legislator.

Moyo claims he is the proprietor of his literary works, which he wrote for the newspaper after being fired from Zanu-PF for breaking party rules by flagging himself as an independent candidate in the March 2008 parliamentary elections.

The ex-information minister is also suing the Daily News for allegedly republishing articles attacking Mugabe and Zanu-PF.

The relicensed Daily News has been running a series of Moyo's articles under the title "Gems from Jonathan Moyo" but he has now sought an order to stop their publication, arguing his rights were being infringed.